I've never been to a lot of concerts, but I always hear of some bands being really good live, and others totally sucking.
What are your favorite bands to see live? And what are your least favorites?
What is the worst band you've ever seen live--and why?
How much does venue matter?

Are their certain things that will make you enjoy a concert more?

:) I wanna go to a few concerts this year, it's my goooal, but I also want to know what I should look for if I want to spend my money the right way, and get the most fun for my buck, you know? xDD

I've never been to a concert! :gonk: But I'll be trollin' through this thread to see what others think of them. So I know who's good and who's bad, and who's worth seeing <:

Electric Six -- 9/10 Loud, Pounding, Catchy Metal Dance rifts. They play to the audience, with the audience, and have a mid concert rant. I've seen them twice, spoke with Alphonso (Percussion World) the first time and danced with Dick the second time. They are a fun group that really hasn't hit it big yet, but has 7 cd's + a demos/rarity cd. Always worth the $7-15 to get in.

David Bowie -- 8/10 He's getting older, so if you like his music it's about time you saw him. Good live when I saw him a number of years back. 2004? But he's a big name musician, and can't cater to individuals during concerts.

Mastodon -- 11/10 They're better live than they are on record. Everything just sounds better and richer than it did on the Cd's

Dethklok -- 9/10 HAHAHA WHAT A BLAST! I windmilled so hard that I had a circle of "keep the ***k away" at the show. and we're talking a Chick rocking just as hard as the moshers without moshing. Oh and The Gears made me fall in love with the music more than the show.

Jelous that you saw Dethklok!!

Im seeing mastodon at sonisphere in the uk this year though, so im DEFINITELY looking forward to that!

I've seen tonnes of bands myself as i've been to few festivals.
So for a few favourites...hmm

I saw the Eagles. they were excellent, definite 10/10

Machine head were awesome to me. another 10/10

Eerm. Within temptation is another 10/10. Her voice is MORE perfect live than on CD!

Iced Earth - 15/10 - FOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOKIN GOOD LIVE!!

there are many more but i can't think right nows xD

Im seeing metallica in the summer too. so they better impress. I've waited all my life for this!

I just got back from a band called Beach House. Their music is very calm and chill-wave, but when they play it's totally different. The lead singer is this french woman with long dirty hair and she bangs on the keyboard and waves around with every song. Also, they had these giant canvas tee-pee type things with lights coming out of them, as props. It was so very intense.

10/10

I've been to too many. I seriously would not be able to list all the bands I've seen. I'll just post some of the more well known bands and bands that really stood out though.

Greenday - I'd rate them a 7/10. Reason being is that personally, I am not a fan of big flashy shows. I saw them when they were on their American Idiot tour. It was in a big venue and not a very personal show. I did however like how they allowed fans to play one of their songs on stage during the concert. That's something you don't see too often and getting the crowd into the show makes it more fun in my opinion.

Chevelle - 8/10 I've seen them I think like four times or so. They always get the fans into the show and they sound pretty good live. The sound equipment could be a bit better but other than that, the crowd always seems to get really into the show. Last time I saw them was last year.

Taproot- I've seen them more times than I can count. They always put on an awesome show and their fans are a lot of fun to interact with. We pretty much consider ourselves family since there's a group that always attends their shows. I can't say that they're "good" live per say but the boys know how to have fun. Not the most professional band but they treat their fans like family and try to get the crowd into the show as much as possible. Their lead singer even starts a mosh pit during the song "Again and Again" most of the time. Vocally though, as much as I love them, they need work live.

Taking Back Sunday - 8/10 No matter how many line up changes they have, they still bring the energy to their live shows. I've seen them 20 or so times at least. The fans are fun to be around and although their singer doesn't interact witht he crowd as much as he used to, they still have a way of drawing the crowd into the music.

Rise Against - 10/10 I've seen them twice. They were just awesome live. A lot of energy and they sounded great. Their stage presence was also pretty good as well.

Against me! - 9/10 I've only seen them once but I really want to see them again. This was another fun band. The fans are crazy in a good way. The sound was a little bad but that was most because they were in a basement of an infrastructure. XD It was a small personal show and aside from issues that my friend and I had with her ex disappearing during the show, it was a blast!

Brand New - 10/10 I've only seen them once as well. This was one of, the best concerts that I have ever been to. The set list was well done, vocals, instruments, everything sounded awesome!

Hinder - 5/10 I saw them twice and never want to see them again. It's not that they were terrible, they just were not anything that really stood out to me as being entertaining. Also, their fans are trashy and both shows someone started a fight with me. IT was at two different venues in two different cities. Performance wise they sounded just like their albums pretty much. Not much crowd interaction and I really could have just stayed home and listened to an album and gotten the same results.

That's all I'll list for now. XD

Oh boy, here we go...

GWAR - Seen them five times, definitely one of the best bands to see live. Fake blood and guts, monsters and mayhem <3 Also, they're really cool guys to hang with.
High on Fire - Saw them open up for GWAR. Pretty good, their song Turk kills it every time.
Converge - Sucked, don't do it.
Priestess - Not bad, Lay Down is a lot of fun live.
Mastodon - AMAZING <3 Saw them with Dethklok for my birthday a few years back. FUCK YEAH!
The Red Chord - Better live than on cd, I'm not a huge fan but their singer wore a Batman mask the entire show lmao
Job for a Cowboy - Better on cd than live, not very impressed
Dethklok - Incredible, duh <3 Saw them with Mastodon
Cattle Decapitation - Absolutely horrid
Mobile Deathcamp - Seen them twice and I love them to death. Todd (singer) and Boe (bassist) are two of the sweetest men I have ever met. Also, Todd gives the best hugs in the universe. Get one if you ever see them!
Dirge Within - Loved them live and on record. Jerms (singer) is a really cool guy, we ran into him a few times. Also really cute.
RAWG - This is GWAR without their costumes on haha. Even then they put on a great show. Love my boys <3
Little Ozzy - Okay this is a little person who impersonates Ozzy and is actually REALLY good at it. He's a cool guy to hang with too. Love him.
Mensrea - Side project including GWAR's lead guitarist. Not bad.
Construkt - Good live
Cannabis Corpse - I was really drunk at this point so I only remember them having a hot guitarist
Sevendust - Um I cried. The end <3
Anew Revolution - Seen them twice, awesome show!
10 Years - I had been told they were really good and I wasn't all that impressed.
Ill Nino - This is my favorite band and holy shit can they put on a show! Dreads and sweat in my face, my hand being held, being sung and played to, being given two guitar picks, then hanging out on the tour bus and having a beer, FUCK YES! Also, I cried like a bitch when they played my favorite song. I highly recommend seeing them <3
Ekotren - Better than I thought they would be, good show
Fashion Bomb - Better live than on record and actually a lot of fun. I kind of have a crush on the drummer.

To get the most bang for your buck, go to Warp Tour or some music fest. : ) I went to warp tour last year and saw a bunch of bands, just to name a few :

White Chapel: Was surprisingly really really good live
Motion City Soundtrack: Sounds the same as on the CD which is pretty awesome to me, they were really good.
All American Rejects: Eh, they were alright, would not go pay money to see an individual concert of there's though. :P

Warp Tour hasn't had any decent bands in YEARS. Big waste of money.

The venue is critical. If the sound sucks you can't really tell if the band is good or not. I also don't recommend videotaping unless you're specifically there for that. You get so into lining up the shot and so on it's more like watching a concert video than really enjoying the concert experience.

I've seen a LOT of bands, cos I used to write for a zine and I still do a radio show (PLUGTIME! you guys can hear it Wednesdays 2-4EST on http://theradiator.org or DL it from my pod blog!) and a public access music thing, so I have my little excuse to get backstage.

Once you've seen a few bands in a certain clicque or circle of musicians, their buds will probably guestlist you, because as I said in another thread, band guys LOVE talking about themselves and will fall all over the chance to plug their latest project.

I've only ever been to one concert so far, been too broke since then to really go to any others haha
But back in 2008 I went and saw Nightwish when they came to Montreal.
Absolutely amazing in every way. My only regret is not being able to see them live before the original singer left, but oh well.
Still totally epic.

Gym Class Heroes - summer of 2007. Pretty decent. I didn't know most of their songs at the time except for "Cupid's Chokehold." Then my bff bought the CD and we got into them. But stage-wise, their performances...mmm...decent. I'm not used to their music anymore, but it was chill for what the performance was.

Michael Buble - May 2008 (this was two days after the Avril Lavigne concert that didn't happen because bitch had a hangover from Las Vegas the night before and Ticketmaster gave me a refund). His thing was nice. Interacts with the audience as part of the show. Everyone was sitting down, though, just enjoying the music. I like how he made the environment laid back.

Joan Jett - summer of 2009. I don't know most of her songs (correction, I DIDN'T until then) but she totally delivered.

Backstreet Boys: April 8, 2010 was an intimate performance of 200something people at a local downtown here in my city, and it was FREE TO GET IN! It was a promotion from a local radio show, so I skipped classes to get myself perfectly ready and dressed hot for it, then picked up my friend from school & then we went. I was like SO CLOSE TO BRIAN, no joke!

Backstreet Boys: June 25, 2010. Their opening act was a guy named "Christian TV" who didn't have a band, rather all of his music was on the DJ tracks. I thought he was lame at first but then I was like...okay, he's kinda cool (after a few days of looking at his Youtube Channel). As for the BSB themselves, this show was indeed a spectacle. That was the best night of my life, even if I went to the concert by myself. It was worth every penny.

I've seen The Rolling Stones, Roger Waters twice, Green Day, Creed, and I've been to two Family Values tours. I honestly couldn't rate them since I love concerts so much and I had fun at all except for Creed. (I didn't feel like being there that night, and I didn't really know the band very well, so I didn't really enjoy myself.)

Again, seen mundo amounts of bands- I used to live over a club, for awhile, and that really upped the toll!so it'd take forever to list and rate em all. The last show I went to and didn't like was Rob Zombie, but that wasn't his fault it was the venue's. For one, it was SRO- I hate shows where I can't sit down if I want to! and for another even tho I had secured a press pass in advance the security guys were certain I shouldn't be filming, nevermind there were squillions of people with their flipflashes and cellphones out, they tried chasing me all over the venue everytime I'd set up and start filming. I'm short, so I'd duck around and under people to ditch 'em, so they never got my camera, but I only got maybe ten minutes of usable footage. I left before the encore so security wouldn't nab me on the way out. The place was in the middle of nowhere so I had to walk a mile before I found a hotel with a phone in it so I could call a cab and go home. It was one of those cool hotels that gives you hot cookies tho, so they gave me one. While I was waiting the lady at the desk asked me where I'd come from, so I told her the name of the club and what I'd been doing there. She was all "Oh, Rob Zombie! He stayed here last night! He's a nice man!"

Well Creed sucks so... :lol:

I've only ever been to SRO shows. I don't see a point to going to a show if you're not going to be anywhere near the stage and getting into the moment. Sitting's for watching tv and falling sleep in classes. Concerts are for mayhem.

Originally Posted by Vix Viral

Well Creed sucks so... :lol:

I've only ever been to SRO shows. I don't see a point to going to a show if you're not going to be anywhere near the stage and getting into the moment. Sitting's for watching tv and falling sleep in classes. Concerts are for mayhem.

I would agree with you completely if I could actually stand up for longer than around 15-30 minutes at a time..but I can't. Which makes it tough for me to go to a lot of concerts.
XP

The last concert I went to was a Toby Keith and Rascal Flatts concert. Now I don't know if you like country or not but that was a great concert. I think the reason I enjoyed it so much was 1. Rascal Flatts brought out their Fiddle player and let him play a song (best fiddle playing I have ever heard, EVER!) and 2. Toby Keith played several "bus songs". If you don't know what those are, it's when they play funny songs they made up while riding their tour bus and you can't find them on their CD, well at least for now. =P. I think showcasing things you can't hear on the CD adds a element of newness to the concert since you weren't expecting it. As far as standing, there was none of that here. We were comfortably seated for the entire concert. I don't think I could have stood for it either. Ever since I got an office job many years ago, I am a totally wuss when it comes to standing for long periods of time. =P
I don't have a lot of experience with going to concerts but if you want a good one that does not require you get get "involved" (e.i. jumping around) than country concerts are awesome. I would love to see Garth Brooks in concert but I don't think that's gonna happen for me anytime soon. =P

I have seen: Green Day
The Damned
Creed
and Status Quo live.

Green Day were excellent, very lively and really let the crowd join in. I really loved how they pulled people onto the stage to play instruments haha.

The Damned were as I expected, not really anything intresting.

Status Quo was my first concert, I was brought up on their music. So it was really great to hear all those songs live, (though getting drunk during kinda ruined the experience)

Creed was...eh. Never was a huge fan, I only know one song. I just went along 'cause.

I have been to four concerts

Halestorm: 8/10 because I could barely hear her over the intruments and THAT bothers me, other than that they did amazing and she was hot! and her voice is soo raspy I love it ^.^

Chevell: 5/10 because his voice was terrible live, very trembling and scratchy. I don't know maybe he had a cold at that concert BUT I will not go to their concert again. I was also being nice too by giving them a 5. I gotta give them SOME props for being up their, I mean playing in front of thousands is NOT easy.

Staind: 7/10 I am not a HUGE fan of them BUT they did sound great

Shinedown: 10/10 PREFECT!! Bret sounded amazing live, He sounded JUST like he would on the album. Beautiful!! the sound was loud and heavy BUT in a good way ^.^ I was jumping with joy and I never jump at a concert, I just don't get my blood that stirred by them that's all. BUT Shinedown did that to me ^.^ WOOOO Go Shinedown!